


A Vision at Dream's End

by Team_Two_Cats



Series: Suikovember 2020 [14]
Category: Suikoden Series (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Prophecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Two_Cats/pseuds/Team_Two_Cats
Summary: Suikovember 2020 Day 30 Prompt: FarewellThe day has come that Leknaat has been seeing for the past four hundred years. The last day she can see, because it's her last day, and the start of a new adventure to decide the fate of the entire Infinity.
Series: Suikovember 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019115





	A Vision at Dream's End

She’s awake when they come. She’s been waiting. Four hundred years, she’s been waiting.

She doesn’t hurry. She is sure, and precise. She’s used to keeping her eyes shut, for the comfort of those around her, those who might be unnerved by her eyes, but she doesn’t bother now. She walks with a quiet, shifting stride, faster here, slower there.

They are already destroying her home. Her latest. She can’t help but spare a mournful thought about the furniture they are breaking. The windows they are smashing. Her favorite tea mug, shattered on the hard stone floor. She walks, counting the steps, timing them with her breathing. One, two, in, out, and she ducks into a closet. Three, four, and she’s out, passing down a hallway, around a bend, down the stairs. Five, six, and she’s stopping near the door, can feel the wind on her face now from outside. Seven, eight, and she’s moving forward again. Out the door, into the woods.

She’s seen it. More than perhaps any other time, she’s seen this day. She knows exactly where to stand for how long to avoid the people tearing apart her home. She knows of the Harmonian mages who would feel if she used her magic to teleport away. She knows that they will be confounded how she walked right through them, without a word, without anyone so much as glimpsing her. They will be worrying about it for a long time. People will die for it. For their failure to capture her. She makes herself not think about it.

She has so much to do, she knows. This day, which has been like charging bull getting ever closer for the past four centuries. This day, her last.

\---

In Kanakan, did Monarch Xan, a stately magic school decree, where Alph, a first year student, ran through hallways confusing to humans, down to their Magic Basics class. If the corridors didn’t shift while they were halfway down them, maybe it would be easier. Maybe they wouldn’t have worry about the disappointing glare of Professor Xebrix, or the conspiratorial laughs of Rigel or the others. Maybe Gabe and Neeji had managed to come up with a distraction, though. Maybe no one would—

They stop. Their heart, already pounding from the run, hammers icicles into their blood.

“Uh…you look new,” they say.

A beast half the width and height of the hallway turns from a branch and stands on four reptilian legs directly where Alph needs to go. Great. Foot long claws click on the slate floor. Drool drips from teeth lining a long, crocodile-like mouth.

“Don’t suppose you’re just looking for Advanced Summoning?” Alph jokes.

The beast steps forward, it’s two larger forelegs creeping, somehow moving a creature that must weigh over a thousand pounds nearly silently through the school. Alph swallows, knows from the way it moves that there’s no hope of escape. But neither do they stand a chance in an open fight against…whatever it is.

Then there’s a light, coming from behind them, and Alph feels their body grow suddenly warm. Hot. Burning up. Like something had reached inside them and stoked some inner fire. Energy blazes through their veins, their mind. Their right hand seems to gather the heat, the energy, and they look to see a rune tracing its mark on their skin.

 _Wish the beast away_. The words whisper in their head and they remember the beast, which seems to hesitate slightly with the sudden light show. Alph raises their glowing hand toward the creature. It lunges. And more than anything else, Alph wishes that it was somewhere else, somewhere it can’t hurt them.

The beast’s forelegs rear up even as its jaws open wide. It’ll be on them in only a second, will—

Something…opens. Alph feels it like opening a door within themself. And the light in their hand extends. They cringe, waiting for the weight of the creature to crush them, the bite of its teeth to rend them. But instead it seems to…enter the light. And disappear into it.

Alph stares. What the fuck was that? Their hand stops glowing. They looks around. There’s no evidence that it was ever there. No mark on the floor. And shit, Alph is still late for class! With a grunt, they take off at a run again, shaking their head. Maybe it was all a hallucination. This school is bizarre, after all. They’ll worry about it later.

\---

Leknaat waits for the young person to finish class, to separate from the pack of other students with two friends. The three of them move with a kind of quiet watchfulness as they move into one of the gardens of the school, wave knowingly at the groundskeeper, and duck into an unused, mostly forgotten sanctuary. She follows, still avoiding glances, still invisible in plain sight. Her time is short now.

She reveals herself in mist and shadow and her own steady voice.

“Be not afraid, rune bearer,” she says as the three get sight of her. They all shrink away, though Gabe and Neeji both move around Alph as if they can protect their friend from destiny. “I am Leknaat. And I’m afraid I come with a heavy burden to impart, and a great mission to undertake.”

“Leknaat?!” Gabe asks. “The seer? The guardian of the Back Gate Rune?”

Leknaat smiles. “I’m glad this upstart school is teaching something,” she says. “And that at least one of you is learning.”

“Hey!” Neeji says, shaking her fist.

Leknaat can’t see it but for the pictures in her mind. The memories she’s gotten her entire life. The whispers of the Gate Rune.

“And I’m now the former guardian of that rune,” she says. “That rune that is now on Alph’s right hand.”

The three all look at Alph’s hand. They must have tried hiding it with their sleeve, but that’s ridden up now, at the telltale design is evident.

“When did—” Neeji starts, but Alph tugs the sleeve down again and addresses Leknaat.

“How do you know my name?” they ask.

“The Gate Rune has its share of secrets,” she says. “It might reveal them to you, in time. If it likes you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alph asks.

“Just that I can tell you little more than that. I have seen much over my years. But nothing past this day. But I can tell you that you’re in danger. That beast before. There are more like it. They are hunting the stars of destiny. They are trying to break the cycle. Open the Eternal City. Destroy…everything.”

“Okay that does sound bad,” Gabe says. “Did you say the Eternal City? Isn’t that to do with Sindar and—”

“There’s no time for that. More will be on the way. And your mission cannot fail. You must find the Tenkai. You must save her.”

“Save her? Who is she? None of this makes any sense! I’m just a magic student!”

“You’re so much more than that, Tenkan Star. You’re more than you know. The Gate Rune will advise you, if it wants. I fear that first you will need to find its second half, and that secret was one the rune never shared with me.”

“What, why? Why do I need both halves?”

“Because only with both can you open up the barrier between life and death without the full power of the stars.”

“And why would I need to do that?”

“Because to save the Tenkai Star…you need to bring her back from death.”

The words settle in the room and for a while no one speaks.

“It is a task for you alone. You, and those who join you. For me, this is…farewell.”

And she lets her still considerable magical powers swirl around her.

“Go to Gregminster, first,” she says. “That is the last place the Front Gate Rune was seen. Start there, and do not fail. Or the entire Infinity is…doomed.”

\---

She steps onto the balcony of Magician’s Tower. The gate behind her seals, and she feels almost the last of her power slip away. She’s breathing hard. It’s been a long time indeed since she had to exert herself so much, since she had to work so hard to conceal her movements.

She feels the tower all around her. Built by her, so long ago. Home. She wonders if Luc and Sarah are watching from the corners, what they might think of all of this. But no, their spirits have re-entered the Infinity. Maybe they will all meet again, if destiny is kind. Or cruel.

“Caught up to you at last, seer,” comes a voice from the shadows.

Leknaat shows no surprise. She feels none. Just the weight of four hundred years finally slipping from her. She sighs.

“That you have, guide,” she says.

They float into the light. They look different from that day on the ship of fog, so long ago. But they are still full of bitterness and rage.

“Figured you couldn’t stay away from here,” they say.

Leknaat smiles. All the levels of the tower are now swarming with monsters. Beasts. All intent on her end. She lets her sense go back into the stone around her, and she releases the very last of her power. She gasps, feeling the bonds between the particles of her body start to weaken.

“I’m afraid you’ll not get what you’re looking for,” she says.

“We know you’ve given the rune away,” they say. “But don’t worry, we’ll find it. You transported here, and such things can be traced, with enough time.”

“Yes,” she says, and she holds up a hand, knows that it’s disappearing.

“Without the True Rune, you’ll be dust. Feeling nostalgic, coming back here? Like better days?”

Leknaat doesn’t close her eyes. Yes, they might figure out where she went, with enough time and the residual energy of her last jump. But they’ll need the location, and they’ll need it pristine. Neither of which they’ll be getting.

“Something like that,” she says, and the tower suddenly and violently reacts with that last bit of magic, activating her failsafe, the final line of defense should this place be invaded. And the last of her particles are carries away by the fire of the explosion.

\---

A spirit rises into the dark of the starlit sky. A small light against a sea of black. But just one light of many, shining from above, guiding those who know how to look.

The…Beginning?

**Author's Note:**

> Also known as How I Might Start Suikoden VI. Excuse the OC and all, and some liberties no doubt with the Gate Rune and continuity in General. But if I was going to write an ending to the series, I think I'd have to go this route. Set it a ways after III, mix mostly new characters with some returning ones. Answer the questions about the Eternal City, the Sindar, Harmonia, all of it. And maybe twist the perspective for at least the first part away from the Tenkai star and to the role of a new Tenkan star, which has pretty much always been linked to Leknaat. Also I couldn't help opening Alph's section with the homage to Coleridge, which is also where I twisted the title from. English lit nerd gonna nerd.


End file.
